Mar
11
2010
March 11, 2010
Last week Pamela Geller wrote this at The American Thinker:
The Freedom Defense Initiative, a new organization I started with author and scholar Robert Spencer, hosted its inaugural event to an enthusiastic standing-room-only crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference on February 19. But this event was at CPAC, not of CPAC. Could this be because of the influence of conservative kingmaker and power-broker Grover Norquist, who is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Conservative Union, which hosts CPAC? The only event concerning the war on America at CPAC was worse than nothing at all: It was an Islamic propaganda (taqiyya) presentation entitled “You’ve Been Lied To: Why Real Conservatives are Against the War on Terror.” Its message was that “real conservatives” don’t support the war on terror because it is a creation of the “Israeli lobby.”
She went on to detail Norquist’s many ties to Islamic supremacists and jihadists. And now Frank Gaffney has followed up on Geller’s piece, writing in his latest column:
Then, there was the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in which, apart from several noteworthy addresses, the official agenda was largely bereft of any discussion of the threats to our nation, constitution and society arising from today’s totalitarian ideology – what authoritative Islam calls “Shariah.” [...]Another explanation for the low-balling, or outright ignoring, of national security is the influence of some of the more libertarian members of the conservative movement. Their sentiments are exemplified and aggressively advanced, mostly behind the scenes, by Grover Norquist. Norquist is best known for his anti-tax activism as president of Americans for Tax Reform but, over the past 12 years, he has become increasingly associated with policies and initiatives that are strikingly at odds with the national security convictions and practices of the man he – and virtually all other conservatives – so admire: Ronald Reagan.
For example, Norquist recently wrote an open letter that charged with “scaremongering” those who opposed the Obama administration’s efforts to close Guantanamo Bay, move terrorist mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his fellow 9/11 conspirators to trial in New York City and open a new Gitmo North in Illinois. He has inveighed for years against the Patriot Act, promoted “open borders” and sponsored a neo-isolationist organization called the American Conservative Defense Alliance. One of the Alliance’s fellows, a disgruntled ex-CIA officer named Philip Giraldi, presented a paper at a 2010 CPAC panel entitled “Why Real Conservatives are Against the War on Terror.” Giraldi told the audience that, “Fear has been the key to the door for expansion of government and government powers and the people in charge in Washington have seized the opportunity. It has also eroded the liberties that have defined us as a nation.”
As…Pamela Geller, among others, have noted, Norquist has also been a sponsor of efforts to promote in the name of GOP “inclusion” individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. He seems indifferent to the Brotherhood’s self-declared mission to “destroy Western civilization from within” or the close alignment between many of his policy recommendations and the interests of the Brothers and other Shariah adherents who seek such an outcome….
Indifferent at best. Anyway, Gaffney goes on to explain that Norquist has been involved in organizing some debates of late, so he sent him this challenge:
8 March 2010Mr. Grover Norquist
President
Americans for Tax Reform
722 12th Street, NW Suite 400
Washington, D.C. 20005Dear Grover:
For some time, you have been promoting a number of national security-related policy positions and initiatives as the appropriate ones for conservatives and Republicans to adopt. These have included:
· Your strenuous opposition to the enactment and subsequent reenactment of the Patriot Act;
· Your support for President Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo Bay;
· Your support for his administration’s bid to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court in New York City;
· Your support for transferring detainees from Guantanamo Bay to a prison in Thomson, Illinois.
· Your advocacy of what amount to open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens;
· And your outreach to individuals and organizations associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the name of GOP “inclusiveness.”You have claimed that those who disagreed with you on these recommendations were “scaremongering,” “racists” and “bigots.”
It has been troubling to me that your policy preferences and efforts to advance them may have contributed to a serious diminution of the amount and quality of attention given to these and related subjects in the Conservative Action Project’s Mount Vernon Statement, the Conservative Political Action Conference’s program and the choices available to respondents as part of the development of the Contract From America.
It was, therefore, heartening to me to learn of the enthusiasm you have expressed together with The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel for the idea of debate as a means whereby arguments can be “tested and honed.” Rarely has it been more necessary than now, in the run-up to a potentially pivotal national election, to have a rigorous evaluation of the sorts of ideas you espouse and promote with respect to our national security and their suitability for American conservatives and Republicans.
Accordingly, I formally challenge you to a public debate about those arguments in a mutually agreeable forum. I believe this should take place at the earliest possible moment, given the importance of sorting out whether your policy recommendations should be adopted or rejected by the Republican Party and/or the conservative movement.
Knowing of your commitment to public debate, I hope you will promptly accept this invitation.
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
President & CEO
Center for Security Policy
While Grover is setting up that debate with Gaffney, he can also finally answer the challenge to debate that I sent him back in July 2008, and wrote about here. But somehow I suspect that neither Gaffney nor I will hear from him.
Nonetheless, it is good to see Gaffney picking up and furthering Geller’s calling-out of Norquist. Pamela has even more on Norquist here.
Posted by Robert on March 11, 2010 8:28 AM | 4 Comments
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An IT developer — another case of someone being educated and gainfully employed, but who still managed to “misunderstand” Islam. An update on this story. “British Airways employee faces terrorism charges,” from CNN, March 11:
London, England (CNN) — A British Airways employee appeared in court Thursday on charges related to terrorism.
The Metropolitan Police Service said Wednesday Rajib Karim, 30, is charged with two counts of engaging in conduct in preparation of terrorist acts and fundraising for the purpose of terrorism.
He appeared in the City of Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
Karim, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, is an information technology developer for British Airways, authorities have said.
Shades of Maher Hawash.
The alleged offenses took place between April 13, 2006, and February 25, 2010, “with the intention of committing acts of terrorism outside the U.K. or assisting another to commit such acts,” police said.
Posted by Marisol on March 11, 2010 5:16 AM | 17 Comments
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Mar
11
2010
Hat tip to Archie.
From: Bill Fallin
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California has now identified with certainty the heaviest element known to science.
The new element, Pelosium (PL), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
Pelosium is inert, and has no charge and no magnetism. Nevertheless, it can be detected because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Pelosium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete.
Pelosium has a normal half-life of 2 years. It does not decay, but instead undergoes a biennial reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places.
Pelosium mass will increase over time, since each reorganization will promote many morons to become isodopes.
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Pelosium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as critical morass.
When catalyzed with money, Pelosium becomes Senatorium, an element that radiates just as much energy as Pelosium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.
Mar
11
2010
They say we only need to talk NICE!
This is a powerful message about the failure of the Great Society. How in the world do we get out of this mess? A perfect example of how good intentions without good foresight can produce an absolute nightmare. Never underestimate the downside of human nature.
THE TRAGEDY OF DETROIT : HOW IMMIGRATION AND MULTICULTURALISM DESTROYED IT
By Frosty Wooldridge
For 15 years, from the mid 1970s to 1990, I worked in Detroit , Michigan . I watched it descend into the abyss of crime, debauchery, gun play, drugs, school truancy, car-jacking, gangs and human depravity. I watched entire city blocks burned out.. I watched graffiti explode on buildings, cars, trucks, buses and school yards. Trash everywhere! Detroiters walked through it, tossed more into it and ignored it.
Tens of thousands and then, hundreds of thousands today exist on federal welfare, free housing and food stamps! With Aid to Dependent Children, minority women birthed eight to 10 and, in one case, one woman birthed 24 kids as reported by the Detroit Free Press-all on American taxpayer dollars. A new child meant a new car payment, new TV and whatever mom wanted. I saw Lyndon Baines Johnson’s “Great Society” flourish in Detroit . If you give money for doing nothing, you will get more hands out taking money for doing nothing.
Mayor Coleman Young, perhaps the most corrupt mayor in America , outside of Richard Daley in Chicago , rode Detroit down to its knees. He set the benchmark for cronyism, incompetence and arrogance. As a black man, he said, “I am the MFIC.” The IC meant ‘in charge’. You can figure out the rest. Detroit became a majority black city with 67 percent African-Americans.
As a United Van Lines truck driver for my summer job from teaching math and science, I loaded hundreds of American families into my van for a new life in another city or state. Detroit plummeted from 1.8 million citizens to 912,000 today. At the same time, legal and illegal immigrants converged on the city, so much so, that Muslims number over 300,000. Mexicans number 400,000 throughout Michigan , but most work in Detroit .
As the whites moved out, the Muslims moved in. As the crimes became more violent, the whites fled. Finally, unlawful Mexicans moved in at a torrid pace. Detroit suffers so much shoplifting that grocery stores no longer operate in many inner city locations.
You could cut the racial tension in the air with a knife! Detroit may be one our best examples of multiculturalism: pure dislike and total separation from America ! .
Today, you hear Muslim calls to worship over the city like a new American Baghdad with hundreds of Islamic mosques in Michigan , paid for by Saudi Arabia oil money. High school flunk out rates reached 76 percent last June according to NBC’s Brian Williams. Classrooms resemble more foreign countries than America . English? Few speak it! The city features a 50 percent illiteracy rate and growing. Unemployment hit 28.9 percent in 2009 as the auto industry vacated the city.
In this week’s Time Magazine October 4, 2009, “The Tragedy of Detroit : How a great city fell and how it can rise again,” I choked on the writer’s description of what happened.
“If Detroit had been savaged by a hurricane and submerged by a ravenous flood, we’d know a lot more about it,” said Daniel Okrent. “If drought and carelessness had spread brush fires across the city, we’d see it on the evening news every night. Earthquake, tornadoes, you name it – if natural disaster had devastated the city that was once the living proof of American prosperity, the rest of the country might take notice.
But Detroit , once our fourth largest city, now 11th and slipping rapidly, has had no such luck. Its disaster has long been a slow unwinding that seemed to remove it from the rest of the country. Even the death rattle that in the past year emanated from its signature industry brought more attention to the auto executives than to the people of the city, who had for so long been victimized by their dreadful decision-making.”
As Coleman Young’s corruption brought the city to its knees, no amount of federal dollars could save the incredible payoffs, kick backs and illegality permeating his administration. I witnessed the city’s death from the seat of my 18-wheeler tractor trailer because I moved people out of every sector of decaying Detroit .
“By any quantifiable standard, the city is on life support. Detroit ’s treasury is $300 million short of the funds needed to provide the barest municipal services,” Okrent said. “The school system, which six years ago was compelled by the teachers’ union to reject a philanthropist’s offer of $200 million to build 15 small, independent charter high schools, is in receivership. The murder rate is soaring, and 7 out of 10 remain unsolved. Three years after Katrina devastated New Orleans , unemployment in that city hit a peak of 11%. In Detroit , the unemployment rate is 28.9%. That’s worth spelling out: twenty-eight point nine percent.”
At the end of Okrent’s report, and he will write a dozen more about Detroit , he said, “That’s because the story of Detroit is not simply one of a great city’s collapse. It’s also about the erosion of the industries that helped build the country we know today. The ultimate fate of Detroit will reveal much about the character of America in the 21st century. If what was once the most prosperous manufacturing city in the nation has been brought to its knees, what does that say about our recent past? And if it can’t find a way to get up, what does that say about our future?”
As you read in my book review of Chris Steiner’s book, “$20 Per Gallon”, the auto industry won’t come back.. Immigration will keep pouring more and more uneducated third world immigrants from the Middle East into Detroit -thus creating a beachhead for Islamic hegemony in America . If 50 percent illiteracy continues, we will see more homegrown terrorists spawned out of the Muslim ghettos of Detroit . Illiteracy plus Islam equals walking human bombs. You have already seen it in Madrid , Spain ; London , England and Paris , France with train bombings, subway bombings and riots. As their numbers grow, so will their power to enact their barbaric Sharia Law that negates republican forms of government, first amendment rights and subjugates women to the lowest rungs on the human ladder. We will see more honor killings by upset husbands, fathers and brothers that demand subjugation by their daughters, sisters and wives. Muslims prefer beheadings of women to scare the hell out of any other members of their sect from straying.
Multiculturalism: what a perfect method to kill our language, culture, country and way of life.
I PRAY EVERYONE THAT READS THIS REALIZES THAT IF WE DON’T ALL STAND UP AND SCREAM AT WASHINGTON AND OUR CITY LEADERS THIS IS WHAT AWAITS AMERICA . IF YOU FOLLOW THE NEWS AT ALL YOU KNOW THIS HAS HAPPENED IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE AND SPAIN .. IF YOU THINK THIS IS JUST A BUNCH OF HOOEY AND YOU FEEL NO DUTY TO FIGHT FOR THIS COUNTRY, THEN I’M SORRY, I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT WILL TAKE FOR YOU TO STAND AND FIGHT.
Frosty Wooldridge
Mar
11
2010
Townhall.com’s Washington Beat
with Jillian Bandes, National Political Reporter
March 9, 2010
Click here to check out Jillian’s weekly videocast.
TERROR AT THE PENTAGON
Last Thursday, John Patrick Bedell loaded up his car with ammunition, drove across the country and walked into a Metro station adjacent to the Pentagon. There, Bedel opened fire after being questioned by police, injuring two officers with gunfire. Officers returned fire and Bedell was killed. One officer who escaped the bullets said he believed God had intervened.
Bedell left behind an angry letter on the Internet prior to his act which explained his beliefs in 9/11 conspiracies and CIA cover-ups. The chilling event came just one week after the attack on a Texas IRS building—an act perpetrated by another civilian who believed in a similar combination of strange anti-government theories and anti-free market beliefs.
MAJOR MASSA MESS
No one really knows what’s going on behind the scenes with Rep. Eric Massa, D-N.Y. Last week, Democrats started to elbow him out of his seat after publicizing charges launched against him by the House Ethics Committee. The charges suggest Massa may have acted inappropriately towards a male aide over a span of eight months.
After that, the narrative goes something like this:
1. Massa said that he would resign, citing health problems.
2. He rescinded that resignation
3. He said he was a fall boy in the health care debate because his planned “no” vote was contrary to his party’s wishes so they were trying to force him out.
4. He said he would resign again.
Tonight, Massa will appear on Glenn Beck’s Fox program, likely with some more bombshells to drop.
OH, CHARLIE
New York is notorious for political scandals, but this week has been a real scorcher. Rep. Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., decided to “temporarily” step down from his position as head of the powerful Ways and Means Committee over charges of tax evasion and inappropriately accepting political gifts. Rangel’s ethics investigators said that he might not have been aware of the financial rules he was breaking, despite controlling the committee in Congress that is most directly responsible for organizing those rules.
Getting Rangel ousted from his chairmanship required a bit of a fight. He initially refused to resign, but pressure from Republicans and some Democrats led House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to meet with him privately on Thursday night. Shortly after this closed-door meeting, Rangel agreed to step-down on a temporary basis, although just how “temporary” Rangel’s resignation is remains to be seen.
$15 BILLION ‘JOBS’ BILL PASSES
It’s a drop in the bucket compared with the $789 billion stimulus bill, but still represents a bipartisan effort to pass more spending that a majority in both parties believe will actually create jobs. Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), voiced a minority opinion:
Those who claim this will encourage job creation clearly don’t understand what goes into a hiring decision in the private sector. Any company that can’t afford to hire today still won’t be able to hire if this bill becomes law. Calling this a ‘jobs’ bill is pure fraud.
…This bill won’t convince wary employers to suddenly start hiring. It simply hands taxpayer money to businesses which were already going to hire anyway. …You can’t tax Americans back to prosperity. It’s just that simple.
The bill invests money in payroll tax reductions and credits for businesses that hire unemployed workers, and increases spending on infrastructure and energy development.
HEALTH CARE MOVING… MAYBE
Obama’s big health care summit caused a lot of chatter about health care moving forward. Obama and Nancy Pelosi are trying really, really hard, but at this point the bill’s future is largely uncertain. At this point, the Senate bill still needs to be passed through the House without any revisions. This means Rep. Bart Stupak and his merry band of pro-life Democrats will have to vote for a bill that contains federal funding provisions for abortion and blindly trust that the Senate will ‘fix’ the bill during reconciliation.
There are simply too many “undecided” Democrats at this point in time to say anything with certainty. Waffling House Democrats are being threatened within an inch of their life by Speaker Pelosi, and Senate scholars are brushing up on parliamentary procedure in case reconciliation moves forward in the Senate.
DEFICIT WORSE THAN EXPECTED
President Obama did not offer up a cheery outlook of the nation’s budget when he submitted his proposal to Congress last week. But now, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has one-upped him in bad news, saying that the actual deficit is $1.2 trillion more than Obama predicted.
Clocking in at a massive $9.8 trillion, the CBO’s estimate included a slower economic growth rate than the President predicted.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
Joe Conason, national correspondent for The New York Observer:
“If the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti carry any message for those of us fortunate enough not to live in those places, perhaps it is that government regulation could save your life — while right-wing ideology may kill you someday.”
- Jillian Bandes
National Political Reporter, Townhall.com
Be sure to check Townhall.com and our blog frequently for other updates
Mar
11
2010
March 11, 2010
NIA has uncovered shocking incompetence by the United States Department of the Treasury. This video is only 3 minutes long but after you watch it we guarantee you will be appalled. We strongly suggest that you spread the word about this video today to your friends and colleagues at work. This is absolutely unbelievable!
Mar
11
2010
STATEMENT BY BRAD BOTWIN, DIRECTOR
HELP SAVE MARYLAND
March 11, 2010
MARYLAND SENATE EDUCATION, HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
“SB 844 – State Procurement – Employment of Unauthorized Aliens and the Federal E-Verify Program”
My name is Brad Botwin and I’m the Director of Help Save Maryland, a multi-ethnic, grass roots citizens’ volunteer organization with thousands of members across all Maryland Counties and Baltimore City. We are Democrats, Republicans and Independents; Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Asians and Indians. We are opposed to the use of our tax dollars on programs and services to attract and sustain illegal aliens. HSM members work to educate fellow Marylanders regarding the financial, social and educational costs of illegal immigration at the state and local level.
Thank you for the opportunity to present my position on SB 844 before this Committee. SB 844 is a very important bipartisan piece of legislation which needs to become the law throughout Maryland.
This committee is fully aware of the economic hardship facing Maryland citizens. In my 26 years of living in Montgomery County, I have never seen so many empty storefronts and foreclosed homes. Neighbors and friends have lost jobs, the ability to neither maintain lifestyles nor afford college tuition for their children. Every county, city and school district across this great state is struggling with budget deficits, furloughs and severe cutbacks in services. I do not envy the difficult decisions you have to make regarding state budget cutbacks.
There are however, some relatively painless steps you can take to open up jobs for citizens, while at the same time increasing the tax base for the state as well as local governments. Enactment of SB 844 is one such step. Implementing the federal E-Verify program will reserve jobs exclusively for those with legal presence in Maryland. Jobs for citizens, who will in turn pay state and local taxes, lessening the pain of budget cuts for services and the furlough of state workers.
Anne Arundel County, with the support of the local Chambers of Commerce has already successfully implemented E-Verify for all county contracts. Frederick County is close behind, as is Washington County, where I recently testified in favor of E-Verify before a very positive Board of County Commissioners. In the coming weeks, HSM will be promoting the benefits of E-Verify to numerous other MD counties interested in creating jobs and strengthening their tax base.
E-Verify virtually eliminates Social Security fraud, improves the accuracy of wage and tax reporting, protects union and non-union jobs, and helps honest employers maintain a legal workforce. As a federal employee, I can’t think of many federal programs that provide so much positive employment and tax base benefits for effectively zero cost to our state. Is the system perfect? No. But perfection is the enemy of the good. The federal government continues to improve the effectiveness of E-Verify in the face of criminal attempts to cheat the system and the American people.
Maybe most the important benefit of E-Verify is that it allows your constituents to find or keep their jobs, their homes and their dreams. And for local employment generating businesses, it keeps unfair competitors, using non-taxpaying workers without legal presence in our state, out of business! Minority workers, especially law abiding Black and Hispanic citizens, are especially vulnerable to competition from illegal alien workers and the businesses that hire them.
In closing, I believe that SB 844 is important for the financial and economic well-being of all Maryland citizens, and our state and local governments. It deserves full bipartisan support and immediate passage. President Obama has implemented E-Verify for all federal contracts and contractors. Maryland needs to follow the President’s lead. Thank you. Help Save Maryland!
Brad Botwin, Director
Help Save Maryland
PO Box 5742
Rockville, MD 20855
240-447-1884
E-mail: HelpSaveMaryland@yahoogroups.com
Web Site: www.HelpSaveMaryland.com
Mar
11
2010
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 24% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-two percent (42%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -18 (see trends).
Thirty-seven percent (37%) give the President good or excellent marks for handling the economy while 47% say he’s done a poor job in this area. On national security, the numbers are 41% good or excellent and 33% poor. On a generic basis, voters trust Republicans more than Democrats on both issues.
Thirty-four percent (34%) believe unemployment will be higher in a year while 29% believe it will be lower.
Twenty-five percent (25%) say the U.S. is generally heading in the right direction.
The Presidential Approval Index is calculated by subtracting the number who Strongly Disapprove from the number who Strongly Approve. It is updated daily at 9:30 a.m. Eastern (sign up for free daily e-mail update). Updates are also available on Twitter and Facebook.
Overall, 44% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the President’s performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove.
Washington Senator Patty Murray leads all announced Republican challengers but could still find herself in a competitive race. In New Hampshire, a pair of Republicans enjoy a solid lead in that open seat race.
The latest polling data can always be found on the Rasmussen Reports home page, updated with new data at least six times daily.
(More Below)
Fifty-seven percent (57%) believe that passage of the proposed health care legislation will hurt the economy. Just 25% believe it will help. Forty-two percent (42%) favor the President’s health care plan while 53% are opposed. Fifty-five percent (55%) say that Congress should scrap the current health care legislation and start over.
Scott Rasmussen and Doug Schoen have an article in today’s Wall Street Journal explaining “Why Obama Can’t Move the Health Care Numbers.” Other recent Wall Street Journal columns by Scott addressed how President Obama is losing independent voters , health care reform, the President’s approval ratings, and how Obama won the White House by campaigning like Ronald Reagan. Scott’s new book, In Search of Self-Governance is available from Rasmussen Reports and at Amazon.com.
If you’d like Scott to speak at your meeting, retreat, or conference, contact Premiere Speakers Bureau.
You can also learn about his favorite place on earth or his time working with hockey legend Gordie Howe.
See our 2010 Senate polling from Nevada, Colorado, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, California, Indiana, Wisconsin, Washington, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Connecticut, Illinois, North Carolina and Iowa.
Rasmussen Reports has also released polls on the 2010 governor’s races in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina Wisconsin, and Texas.
It is important to remember that the Rasmussen Reports job approval ratings are based upon a sample of likely voters. Some other firms base their approval ratings on samples of all adults. President Obama’s numbers are always several points higher in a poll of adults rather than likely voters. That’s because some of the President’s most enthusiastic supporters, such as young adults, are less likely to turn out to vote. It is also important to check the details of question wording when comparing approval ratings from different firms.
(More Below)
Rasmussen Reports has been a pioneer in the use of automated telephone polling techniques, but many other firms still utilize their own operator-assisted technology (see methodology). Pollsters for Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have cited our “unchallenged record for both integrity and accuracy.”
Data from the Washington Post confirms that Rasmussen Reports was well ahead of other media coverage on the Massachusetts Senate race.
In the 2009 New Jersey Governor’s race, automated polls tended to be more accurate than operator-assisted polling techniques. On reviewing the state polling results from 2009, Mickey Kaus offered this assessment, “If you have a choice between Rasmussen and, say, the prestigious N.Y. Times, go with Rasmussen!”
During Election 2008, liberal blogger Nate Silver said that the Rasmussen tracking poll “would probably be the one I’d want with me on a desert island.”
In 2008, Obama won 53%-46% and our final poll showed Obama winning 52% to 46%. While we were pleased with the final result, Rasmussen Reports was especially pleased with the stability of our results. On every single day for the last six weeks of the campaign, our daily tracking showed Obama with a stable and solid lead attracting more than 50% of the vote.
An analysis by Pollster.com partner Charles Franklin “found that despite identically sized three-day samples, the Rasmussen daily tracking poll is less variable than Gallup.” During Election 2008, the Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll was the least volatile of all those tracking the race.
We also have provided a summary of our 2008 state-by-state Presidential results for your review.
In 2004 George W. Bush received 50.7% of the vote while John Kerry earned 48.3%. Rasmussen Reports was the only firm to project both candidates’ totals within half a percentage point by projecting that Bush would win 50.2% to 48.5%. (see our 2004 results).
See also our 2008 state results for Senate and governor. See 2006 results for and governor.
Pollster.com founder Mark Blumenthal noted that “independent analyses from the National Council on Public Polls, the American Association for Public Opinion Research, the Pew Research Center, the Wall Street Journal and FiveThirtyEight.com have all shown that the horse-race numbers produced by automated telephone surveys did at least as well as those from conventional live-interviewer surveys in predicting election outcomes.”
Daily tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. The margin of sampling error—for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters–is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Results are also compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for full-week results are available for Premium Members. Like all polling firms, Rasmussen Reports weights its data to reflect the population at large (see methodology).
Among other targets, Rasmussen Reports weights data by political party affiliation using a dynamic weighting process. While partisan affiliation is generally quite stable over time, there are a fair number of people who waver between allegiance to a particular party or independent status. Since the November 2008 election, the number of Democrats in the country has declined while the number of unaffiliated voters has grown.
Our baseline targets are established based upon separate survey interviews with a sample of adults nationwide completed during the preceding three months (a total of 45,000 interviews) and targets are updated monthly. Currently, the baseline targets for the adult population are 35.3% Democrats, 32.8% Republicans, and 31.9% unaffiliated. Likely voter samples typically show a slightly smaller advantage for the Democrats.
A review of last week’s key polls is posted each Saturday morning. Other stats on Obama are updated daily on the Rasmussen Reports Obama By the Numbers page. We also invite you to review other recent demographic highlights from the tracking polls. To get a sense of longer-term trends, check out our month-by-month review of the President’s numbers.
Mar
11
2010
Comment Rebuttal
Re: Comment: Well you are splitting hairs. Avowed closet doesn’t really matter. We also never said Obama knew of CPUSA, did we?
Frank Masotti
From agapealoha@verizon.net
“When Obama wrote a book and said he was mentored as a youth by Frank, (Frank Marshall Davis) an avowed Communist, people said it didn’t matter.”
Perhaps you should do some fact checking on your own, because you are wrong on both points. Obama never said he was mentored by Frank. Davis was a closet communist, not an “avowed communist.” There is no evidence that Obama even knew of Davis’s CPUSA connection.
Mar
10
2010
Obama presses Reid to cut special
deals from health bill
By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN | 3/10/10 8:11 PM EST
- President Obama wants Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to strike narrow provisions from health care reform legislation. Photo:
POLITICO 44
President Barack Obama is pushing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to go further than Obama has previously disclosed to strip the final health care reform bill of the narrow deals aimed at appeasing specific senators.
The president wants to eliminate more than just Sen. Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback” and Sen. Bill Nelson’s agreement to shield 800,000 Florida seniors from Medicare Advantage cuts, the White House told POLITICO Wednesday in response to questions about other deals in the bill.
Obama has asked Reid to strike provisions requested by senators from at least five other states, in an unusual move that accentuates the culture clash between the president’s rhetoric on changing the ways of Washington and the Senate leader’s needs to exercise the old-fashioned tools of Congress to pass laws.
“We’ve removed many of the special provisions that initially found their way into the legislation, and we’ve made it clear to the Senate that the president’s position is that the final bill shouldn’t include any earmarks or provisions that would favor a single state or district over the rest of the country,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said in a statement Wednesday.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the decision on what to keep in the bill rests with congressional leaders and that no determinations have been made.
Senators whose deals have been targeted — some of whom did not know the deals might be in danger — said they would fight to maintain them, arguing they are in no way as egregious as the Cornhusker Kickback.
“We have defended it, and we will defend it,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose state picked up $600 million in extra Medicaid funding for having already expanded its coverage of low-income individuals.
But ever since last-minute deal making helped sour voters on the Senate bill that passed on Christmas Eve, any provision identified by Republicans or the media as benefiting a single state or a small number of states has sat on shaky ground.
Obama tried to publicly distance himself from the deals, saying he wasn’t in the room when they were struck, even though some of his aides were. The president rankled Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by criticizing them for doing what generations of their predecessors have done: cut deals. And in the process, he may have made it entirely untenable for them to deploy one of the tried-and-true methods for muscling major reforms through Congress.
“Legislators need pork to make things happen,” Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University professor of history and public affairs, wrote in POLITICO Wednesday. “It is unrealistic to expect that legislative leaders won’t use one of the few tools at their disposal to get things done.”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34235.html#ixzz0hqEDUNCG
Mar
10
2010
By Dick Morris
03.10.2010
These thirty Democratic Congressmen all voted for Obamacare the first time around. But Pelosi cannot count on their votes again as Obama tries to jam the bill through using reconciliation in the Senate. These members are all vulnerable and are frightened of the voter backlash their support for Obamacare has kindled.
The League of American voters is running ads in each of their districts to press them to vote no on Obamacare. See their ad on the screen at left. And give us money to run the ad!
But also, pick up the phone and call these swing Congressmen. Let them hear from you! Here’s the list:
| PLEASE CALL! | DC OFFICE | LOCAL OFFICE |
| Harry Mitchell | (202) 225-2190 | (480) 946-2411 |
| Gabrielle Giffords | (202) 225-2542 | (520) 881-3588 |
| Ann Kirkpatrick | (202) 225-2315 | (928) 226-6914 |
| Jerry McNerney | (202) 225-1947 | 925-833-0643 |
| John Salazar | 202-225-4761 | 970-245-7107 |
| Jim Himes | (202) 225-5541 | (866) 453-0028 |
| Alan Grayson | (202) 225-2176 | (407) 841-1757 |
| Bill Foster | (202) 225-2976 | 630-406-1145 |
| Baron Hill | 202 225 5315 | 812 288 3999 |
| Mark Schauer | (202) 225-6276 | (517) 780-9075 |
| Gary Peters | (202) 225-5802 | (248) 273-4227 |
| Dina Titus | (202) 225-3252 | 702-256-DINA (3462) |
| Carol Shea-Porter | (202) 225-5456 | (603) 743-4813 |
| Tim Bishop | (202) 225-3826 | (631) 696-6500 |
| John Hall | (202) 225-5441 | (845) 225-3641 x49371 |
| Bill Owens | (202) 225-4611 | (315) 782-3150 |
| Mike Arcuri | (202)225-3665 | (315)793-8146 |
| Dan Maffei | (202) 225-3701 | (315) 423-5657 |
| Earl Pomneroy | (202) 225-2611 | (701) 224-0355 |
| Steven Driehaus | (202) 225-2216 | (513) 684-2723 |
| Mary Jo Kilroy | (202) 225-2015 | (614) 294-2196 |
| Zach Space | (202) 225-6265 | (330) 364-4300 |
| Kathy Dahlkemper | (202) 225-5406 | (814) 456-2038 |
| Patrick Murphy | (202) 225-4276 | (215) 826-1963 |
| Christopher Carney | (202) 225-3731 | (570) 585-9988 |
| Paul Kanjorski | (202) 225-6511 | (570) 825-2200 |
| John Spratt | (202) 225-5501 | (803)327-1114 |
| Tom Perriello | (202) 225-4711 | (276) 656-2291 |
| Alan Mollohan | (202) 225-4172 | (304) 623-4422 |
| Nick Rahall | (202) 225-3452 | (304) 252-5000 |
| Steve Kagen | (202) 225-5665 | (920) 437-1954 |
Let’s get busy to save health care in America! Thank you.